Warp an item

The
Warp command lets you drag control points to manipulate the shape
of images, shapes, or paths, and so on. You can also warp using
a shape in the Warp Style pop‑up menu in the options bar. Shapes
in the Warp Style pop‑up menu are also malleable; drag their control
points.

When using the control points to distort an item,
choosing View > Extras shows or hides the warp mesh
and control points.

Using Warp

A.
Selecting the shape to be warped B.
Choosing
a warp from the Warp Style pop‑up menu in the options bar C.
Result
using several warp options

Select what you want to warp.

Do one of the following:

Choose Edit > Transform >
Warp.

If you chose a different transform command or the
Free Transform command, click the Switch Between Free Transform
And Warp Modes button in
the options bar.

Do one or more of the following:

To warp using a specific shape, choose a warp style from the Warp pop‑up menu in the options bar.

Dragging a control point to warp the mesh

To the manipulate the shape, drag the control points, a segment of the bounding box or mesh, or an area within the mesh. When adjusting a curve, use the control point handles. This is similar to adjusting the handles in the curved segment of a vector graphic.

To undo the last handle adjustment, choose Edit > Undo.

Manipulating the shape of a warp

To change the orientation of a warp style that you chose from the Warp menu, click the Change The Warp Orientation button in the options bar.

To change the reference point, click a square on the Reference point locator in the options bar.

To specify the amount of warp using numeric values, enter the values in the Bend (set bend), X (set horizontal distortion) and Y (set vertical distortion) text boxes in the options bar. You can’t enter numeric values if you have chosen None or Custom from the Warp Style pop‑up menu.

Do one of the following:

Press Enter (Windows) or Return
(Mac OS), or click the Commit button in the
options bar.

To cancel the transformation, press Esc or click
the Cancel button in
the options bar.

Note:

When you warp a bitmap image (versus
a shape or path), the image becomes slightly less sharp each time
you commit a transformation; therefore, performing multiple commands
before applying the cumulative transformation is preferable to applying
each transformation separately.